


Any Other World

by fineinthemorning



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Drunk Texting, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Flirting, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-27 22:51:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19799383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineinthemorning/pseuds/fineinthemorning
Summary: Ren: HeyRen: Come overAkechi: Now? It's late.Ren: Right now





	Any Other World

**Hey**

**Come over**

Goro stared at the pair of texts. He imagined the words, short and authoritative, coming from Joker. Something must have come up if he was messaging him this late at night. Did it have to do with the mission? Or, worse, had he learned something about himself? Goro always took great effort in being careful, but, after experiencing the change in Amamiya Ren in the metaverse when he donned the domino mask as Joker and ordered the Phantom Thieves about the Casino, Goro now knew better than to underestimate him. 

He texted back.

**Now? It’s late.**

After several minutes passed, he received only:

**Right now**

Goro frowned at his phone. It was a direct message to him, not to the others. If it were Phantom Thieves business, then Amamiya would have messaged the group chat. There was the possibility of them setting him up. It’d be foolish to think that there wasn’t a group chat that excluded him, but still-- Goro began getting dressed, running down the list of possibilities. He expected Amamiya may have learned something. It could have been his involvement with some other organization, or at least suspicion of it, but there was no way he’d learned anything about Shido; Goro took every precaution for that first and foremost. It could be about something in the palace maybe . . . that he wanted to speak with him tactically since the younger Niijima was too close to this? Or it could even be about Mementos? Perhaps he wanted his opinion on whether or not to assist in a small change of heart. It wouldn’t be the first time Amamiya had picked his brain over something or other. Still, that didn’t explain the urgency. As he boarded the last train in the direction of Yongenjaya, he settled on the expectation that whatever it was, it was a necessity that he’d have to face; he couldn’t very well say ‘no’ and end up losing further trust from the Phantom Thieves’ leader so shortly after he’d outright blackmailed him.

After walking in to LeBlanc, however, he was faced with a most unexpected scenario. For, what he hadn’t expected was walking in to Leblanc to see the leader of the Phantom Thieves at the bar nursing a tall glass with a lemon slice on the rim in one hand while the other was lost to his curls as he held his head up with an elbow planted firmly in the wood of the bar. Goro noticed the pink in his cheeks first, light but apparent, and his eyes traced down Amamiya’s neck to see that it had gone red. The teen’s skin was glowing in a way that couldn’t be attributed to a blush or rash; he was flushed red not from embarrassment, but from alcohol. Goro locked eyes with the teen as he walked through the door to let it shut with a short ring behind him. Amamiya’s grey eyes were soft, half-lidded as they stared up at him adoringly looking somewhere between self-satisfied and enraptured.

“Hey, you came over.”

Goro released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding as he digested the situation. Apparently, he’d misread the tone of the text completely: this wasn’t a call for a meeting; this was, well, something else entirely. 

“Come sit down.”

Note to self: Amamiya Ren was demanding when intoxicated. 

Goro had one of two options. He could either a) choose to turn around and leave at risk of ruining his ‘responsible, pure-boy detective’ reputation or he could b) sit down and play this out at risk of his pride. Tough one. Goro must have kept the teen waiting a moment too long because Amamiya’s expression began to shift into a small, heartbreakingly sad frown, and his eyes fell shamefully down to the floor before Goro could do a thing about it. 

Note to self: Amamiya Ren was, in a word,  _ adorable _ when tipsy.

For better or worse, Goro gave in and sat down beside him, turning to face him to gauge his reaction.

Amamiya smiled so brightly he looked unlike himself for a moment, before it softened once more and he defaulted back to lazy admiration.

“It worked.”

Note to self: Amamiya Ren was openly manipulative when drunk.

Goro looked away, both uncomfortable with the attention from the Phantom Thieves’ leader (who would have thought) and the close proximity with which he studied him. Typically, there was a counter between them, or a chessboard, or masks. Typically, they did not sit close enough to touch. And typically, he couldn’t smell Amamiya’s shampoo or skin or breath. “You realize that what you’re doing is illegal?” He looked to his left to see Amamiya still eyeing him as he absently toyed with the lemon on his glass.

“I didn’t know looking was a crime,” he grinned just wide enough to reveal silent laughter that refused to surface past his lips.

Note to self: Amamiya Ren’s charm is rather lacking the more intoxicated he becomes.

“Underage drinking is a crime,” Goro replied with his hands together on the bar top and a nod in the direction of Amamiya’s glass.

“Are you going to take me in, detective?” he raised an eyebrow over the rim of his glasses and with his whole body weight literally leaned in towards the detective.

Goro leaned back to keep distance between them, hating himself for lamenting the fact that had he not, Amamiya’s face would be buried in his chest right now, “I-I may have to.”

Amamiya pulled away and straightened up, tilting his head in an obvious attempt at charm. Goro could swear he’d activated some kind of sparkle filter in real life as Amamiya looked back at him with the blush still evident on his cheeks, “I’d probably like that.”

Note to self: Amamiya Ren is shamelessly gutsy with a bit of alcohol.

Well, that was a line they’d yet to cross before tonight. Thoroughly K.O.’d, Goro looked away with a face that certainly wasn’t burning now in a flushed pink. And the little huff he made as he rolled his eyes was certainly not to hide the fact that he was holding back the biggest smile. Really, how had this even come about? “Amamiya, is this what you called me here for?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“ . . . Why is that?” Goro built a wall out of smiles on his face to keep his most infuriating opponent yet from winning this infuriating game they were playing suddenly.

“You’re beautiful.”

Goro had nothing to say to that, his lips in a line. He would not be charmed by a drunk sixteen-year-old, no matter how endless his eyes were or how seductive his smile was. And, there was something painful about this moment, anyway, and he was sure that if his eyes lingered a little too long inside those gray skies, he’d realize that he enjoyed the rain just as much as he enjoyed the sun. And, well, he couldn’t have that. He wouldn’t. 

He’d already decided.

“And,” Amamiya added definitively, “I wanted to see you.”

Goro put his hand under his thigh to keep himself from hitting Amamiya in the back of the head for that incredibly illuminating comment. “Yes—That— . . . Ok,” he reevaluated his approach. Nope, that had been his fatal error from the get-go. He never should have stayed. While the information regarding Amamiya Ren was indeed new: he was a demanding, adorable, manipulative, gutsy, and transparent drunk, it was not helpful in any way. It wasn’t as though Amamiya was traipsing about the Metaverse with a six pack of Asahi Super Drys rather than a six pack of Muscle Teas. It was time to go home. He’d have to call a cab, which was a bitch, but he’d just put it on a credit card or something. It wouldn’t matter in a few months anyway. After finding his metaphorical footing, Goro looked back to him with a plaster smile and a lofty tone that held only an edge of judgement, “And so you have. Now then, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll--” He stood up from the chair only to feel a firm grip around his left forearm. Amamiya Ren had the literal nerve to grab him? To physically exert force on him to have his way? This was new, but Goro couldn’t help but feel conflicted over whether or not it was actually unwelcome.

“Don’t go.”

In those two words, Goro could hear the very longing of a breaking heart he didn’t know Amamiya Ren had. Their eyes met, and a chill ran up his back, his legs stiff, and his arms heavy. No one had ever looked at him like this-- like he was the very air they needed to breathe, the very manifestation of their one, true destiny. “What?” He asked dumbly, forgetting the words that had been said because all that was left in their wake was the meaning behind him. Ren looked ready to give his life if it meant he stay with him, not now but always, forever, this life and the next. 

“You always leave.” 

A reprieve snapped Goro from his thoughts when Ren looked away, arm falling uselessly at his side in a reluctant submission. He’d lost his liquid courage. Goro took a moment to gather himself but the pieces didn’t fit back together right. He couldn’t smile this time, but thankfully, Ren was looking his way to see that, “As I must. I don’t live here.”

Except, he did look back, lips a small frown, eyes burdened with a reality he’d sooner see burned to ash by bad choices than sit there and do nothing. “But you could,” he said.

Goro would have argued that he didn’t deserve this except that would be wrong. He very much deserved any punishment Amamiya Ren chose to rain down on him because he’d be the one to take his life. “What? Amamiya, you really--”

“You never think about it, do you?” he asked, his eyes still heavy with with an unnameable sadness.

“What?”

“How different you--no . . . I . . .” Goro watched him struggle his eyes shifting back in forth in time and space between Goro and all of the sides of him he’d seen in the past, “how different the world would be if people were honest with one another?”

Goro sat down once more, relenting, noticing that if this conversation were this serious perhaps Ren was not as far gone as he let on. “I don’t have time for that.”

Ren visibly relaxed, arms back up on the bar and hands back around his glass, “You don’t make time for it because . . . it scares you, doesn’t it?”

“A world of transparency?”

“Your own transparency.”

Goro turned his whole body towards him, his eyebrow raised in offense, “You think I’m disingenuous?”

Amamiya smiles first, grinned stupidly back at him as though he’d told a joke, but then realized his slip and turned his head away with a snort. Apparently after having composed himself he looked back at him,expression serious, “I think everyone is . . . to some degree . . . you and I especially.”

Goro said nothing.

Ren picked out the lemon slice and began to fiddle with it between his fingers, “I know . . . a lot of things . . . but not why . . . and that’s what’s always missing.”

Goro watched him drop the lemon back inside the drink. “I don’t follow.”

Ren sat up straight once more and carefully pushed the drink away until it could barely be reached by the tips of his fingers. Mirroring Akechi’s posture, he turned in his seat until he were facing him directly once more. “I called you here because I want to understand you. I want to know you.”

Akechi felt their knees touch, but he tried not to look down to bring attention to it, “Amamiya-san, you do know--”

“I don’t,” he cut him off, sounding completely sober and far too serious to be the same lazy, flirtatious drunk he was less than fifteen minutes prior, “ . . . I wish I did though.”

“I won’t drink with you.” Goro smiled, unsure of the territory he’d just crossed into and if he were allowed to be here at all.

“I knew that was a pipe dream,” Amamiya grinned back.

Goro knew that Ren knew he was beautiful. He’d seen Joker in the metaverse; that cocky confidence wasn’t a lie. Goro was certain Ren knew just what he was doing with his smile, his knees, his fingers that disappeared into his wild, soft hair.

“But I’ll stay.”

Ren’s smile only grew wider. “I have to go first?”

“First for what?”

Amamiya’s eyes trapped him then, and Goro shivered. Goro remained completely still as Ren leaned in to touch his nose, his lips, to Goro’s neck. Was he in shock? Was it horror? Was it fear? As soon as the warmth of a tongue made contact with sensitive skin, Goro pushed him away immediately pulling back in his chair to grant them as much distance as possible without our him standing up and bolting for the door.

“You wouldn’t if you were sober.”

Still smiling, Ren shrugged, apparently unaffected by Goro’s dismissal, “Because I’m like you.”

“What?”

“Because I’m scared, and that makes me dishonest.”

Without thinking, which is always his first mistake when he does something he will regret later, Goro closed the distance between them, put both his hands on either side of Ren’s face to hold him still, leaned in, and kissed him. It was meant to shut him up, maybe, but as soon as their lips met, Goro felt desperate to keep them together. His hands fell down to Ren’s shoulders as the other wrapped arms around his waist. Then, Ren’s mouth opened wider to invite him in, to deepen the kiss, and Goro took said invitation with a helpless, wanton moan. His hands traveled further down Ren’s chest, around his waist, and over his hips, and as he outlined Ren’s form with his hands, he tasted the inside of his mouth reaching further with just as much ferocity as the drunken desperation of Amamiya Ren. 

And then it happened. 

He felt his heart clench suddenly, a grip like a vice around it, straining the muscle sure to stop, sending his eyes from closed to strained shut, tight and painful. It was killing him. This kiss was physically killing him. 

Ren must have sensed something wrong because his grip around Goro’s waist tightened, but he broke the kiss to let them both breathe. 

Goro watched the other’s chest heave, his eyes dark, his red lips parted, and he wanted nothing more than to disappear entirely. 

“Don’t try this again.”

“If this were that world, I know I’d make you happy.”

“But it’s not.” And he’s gone. He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t hear Ren say, ‘ _ But it could be, _ ’ in a broken voice that would make him sacrifice his very life to mend. He doesn’t see Ren look around for someone or something to hold only to realize there is no one but himself. He doesn’t feel Ren’s loneliness nor his desperation to connect to someone he sees himself inside.

He doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a super cute drawing I lost along the way of an intoxicated protagonist. I simply adored that art. ;-;  
> Edit: Thanks be to Anon! The art is here. What a precious boy.


End file.
